


Come on, Sammy, everybody likes the Eighties!

by Itsamess



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Stranger Things Fusion, And Jonathan Needs a Hug, But also some feelings, Case Fic, Crossover, Dean Watches Television, Gen, Movie Reference, Sam Is So Done, Set at some point of Supernatural season 5, Some Plot, Time Travel, Winchesters Have Issues, but don't we all, the kids aren't alright
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 04:51:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12951687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itsamess/pseuds/Itsamess
Summary: «Dean, I think… I think there's a reason why we got here. Maybe we have to find this boy!»«Yeah, right. Wetime-travelledto find a kid? And don’t give me that “Everything happens for a reason” shit» Dean said, using air quotes «I've got Castiel for that.»His brother sighed.«That’s not what I am saying. But you said it yourself, there isn’t a plausible reason why we’ve ended up in Indiana… yet  here we are, in 1983, and a boy’s missing. What were the chances?»«People disappear all the time!» Dean bursted out.«Yeah, but time-travel isn’t that common, is it? It’s clear thatsomethingbrought us here – call it what you want, God, Fate-»«A road atlas»«The point is that maybe we can help. Don’t you wanna try to make the most of the time we have here?»





	Come on, Sammy, everybody likes the Eighties!

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys!  
> I wrote this story because there weren't many Supernatural/Stranger Things crossovers and I needed to mash two of my favorite shows of all time.
> 
> English is not my first language, I translated this for you so please let me know if you see any mistake!
> 
> Spoilers for Stranger Things season 1 and Supernatural seasons 1-5

  


  
  
**Come on, Sammy, everybody likes the Eighties!**  
   
   
   
 

Everything was so perfect that it looked like a dream.  
   
Ok, maybe there wasn't any pretty chick and still nobody had brought donuts, but it was still the kind of dream Dean would have loved to dream.  
(at least it was better than his usual _Disco Inferno_ without _Disco_ nightmares)  
  
Late at night, the crescent moon was giving off a weak light and the Impala headlights were doing the rest. There wasn’t a real need though: the road was clear, not to say completely empty because of the late hour. Moreover, that stretch of road was famous for its inexplicable thunderstorms, so drivers would rather stay away from it.  
   
Who could blame them? It wasn’t great driving with the risk of being fried by an electrical discharge – Dean thought with a wince, absentmindedly tapping his fingers on the steering wheel – but they  had no choice. Electromagnetic phenomena were a _classic_ demon omen, like a huge flashing arrow from the Universe that showed hunters where to look.  
In the last week there had been three thunderstorms in completely flat and deserted areas, so it was quite obvious that it was a job for Dean and Sam.  
  
  
They would have followed the same routine, as ever: layover in the first motel, rejuvenating shower, little quarrel over the best side of the bed, a few hours of sleeep and in the morning a nice breakfast with coffee and damp sandwiches – before shutting themselves away in the local library for _research_.  
Best Sunday ever, especially with a killjoy like Sam.  
   
Dean tried to ignore the thought of the next day and focus on the road, that was flowing under him like an asphalt river, straight and perfect. He pushed on the gas, pleased by the virile roaring of his baby.  
  
  
Driving in the night was a total bliss.  
No idiots cutting him off, no trucks taking up all his rear-view window space… no obstacles – just the moon, the road, him, and his impeccable music taste.  
In that right moment, Springsteen was singing  _Born to Run_  in an awesome live version, all guitar riffs and crowd screaming. It was great listening listen to it without Sam constant grumbling and complaining that they had put that record on a thousand times.  
And even if they did?  
That song was a fucking classic and one must honor classics.  
   
 _The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive_  
 _ _Everybody's out on the run tonight_  
 _but there's no place left to hide__  
   
Dean glanced at his brother, that was sleeping on the passenger seat. He had his right temple leaning on the window and his excessively long hair all over his forehead. And maybe it was just a fanfiction cliche – not that Dean read that crap, of course – but he couldn't help but thinking that his brother looked younger and more vulnerable with his eyes closed. It was funny – it reminded him of when they were little and Dad was the one driving and when they were crossing a border they slept in the Impala. When the road was especially bumpy, Dean used to take of his coat and put it under Sam’s head so that he wouldn’t get hurt  banging it against the window.  
   
(God, it was getting so cheesy, now what? Last thing he needed was to shed a single, perfect tear while the music was dramatically soaring – it wasn't the ending scene of a stupid tv show!)  
   
 _Where we really wanna go_  
 _ _and we'll walk in the sun_  
 _But till then tramps like us_  
 _baby we were born to run__  
   
Dean rolled down the window e filled up his lungs with the cold air of the night. It was so freezing that it made him giddy and for a second the wind howling covered the lyrics of the song. It was one of those perfect moments in which his shitty life seemed a little less shitty, and he could just be himself…. Dean. Not the hunter, not the boy back from the dead, not the righteous man shedding blood in hell. In moments like that, the weight of his mistakes got less and less heavy, one mile at time, one song at time.  
He was feeling free, born to run like good old Bruce. Smiling, Dean turned up the volume: Sam was still sleeping, anyway, and he was still the driver, and everybody knows that it's the driver that picks the music.  
So, Springsteen.  
   
« _Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh… Ru-uh-uh-un_!» he shamelessy sang along, still trying to keep his voice down. He didn't want to risk waking up his brother and having to sit though the umpteenth  _recap_  of which was the case and which was their plan.  
   
It was just another thunder storm, just another bored demon trying to mess  up… He and Sam would have  pronounced their exorcisms, hose everything with holy water and that was it.  
Easy peasy demon squeezy.  
   
It was a routine job and everything would have turned out just fine.  
And while Springsteen was about to sing the main chorus, Dean hit the gas again.  
   
«Slow down.» Sam remarked wearely.  
Of course, it was typical of him sleeping til the last and waking up just to bug him. Dean looked at him hiding a yawn with the back of his hand and then repeating with greater conviction: «Dean, I mean it, slow down. The speed limit is 90…»  
   
«Relax, Sammy! It’s a side street, there aren’t speed cameras!»  
   
«It’s not about the speed camera. Respect the speed limit, we are already fast enough...» he grumbled «It could be dangerous.»  
   
«Dangerous for whom? There’s literally no one here!»  
   
Sam opened his mouth to say something else, but his brother had no plan on fighting with him, not ad 5 A.M.  
   
«Alright, alright, I am slowing down!» he bursted out. He couldn’t understand why his brother cared so much about that... He and Sam had spent _months_ hunted by the FBI with charges of armed robbery, kidnapping and murder, they couldn’t shit themselves for speeding ticket!  
   
But he really didn’t want to fight, so Dean stopped pushing the gas.  
«Did you heard him, baby?»  he whispered, leaning towards the car dashboard  «The limit is 90… But I am telling you, Sam, next time you complain about my driving you will find yourself hitchhiking on the side of the road, Woman in White style!»  
   
His brother mumbled something about trying to keep them alive and Dean was tempted to respond that death had never stopped the Winchesters, who had gone and come back from Hell so many times that they deserved a Frequent Flyer Card.  
   
With all his pointless grumbling Sam had ruined the mood –  and Dean had missed the last _Born to Run_  chorus – so his brother wasn’t so willing to crack a joke. He rolled up the window, gave a dirty look to the speedometer and  theatrically exclaimed: «Here, 88 miles per hour. Are you happy now?»  
   
Sam didn’t have the chance to say anything, because a second later they heard a violent sound, like the crack of a whip.  
«What the hell -»  
   
A white blinding light flashed before Dean’s eyes and he didn’t even have the time to _think_ about  what it was – a fallen angel? A fucking shooting star? – that it crashed against the Impala hood, in a burst of smoke and sparks.  
   
Dean suddently hit the brakes, stopping in the middle of the road.  
   
«Sammy! Sammy, are you alright?!» he found himself screaming, while he scanned his brother’s body to see if he was wounded. Fortunately, Sam didn’t seem hurt.    
  
«What was that?» he gasped, still in shock.  
   
«A lightning. We have been struck by lighning! What were the chances?!» Dean exploded with rage, throwing a punch to the steering wheel. What next? Why couldn’t everything be quiet for just one night? Dean didn’t know if that lightning was connected to a demon or what – and frankly he had bigger problems at the moment. After checking on Sam, Dean had to make sure the other half of his heart, too, was safe and sound.  
  
He opened the door and rushed outside the Impala to see the damages to the bodywork.  
The situation wasn’t good, because the car was completely cloaked in a thick grey smoke. Moreover, the lighning had hit the middle of the hood, that now was all dented like an old shoebox top. One wouldn’t have to take a look at the engine to know that it was completely melted.  
Dean like a smoked flavour from time to time, but in his hamburgers, not in his car.  
«Could someone please tell God that going after us is one thing, but INNOCENT CARS SHOULD NOT BE INVOLVED??» he couldn’t’ help but screaming against the sky.  
   
Sam hid a laugh with a cough.  
   
What was so funny about that?  
Ok, the Impala had seen worse – they had all seen worse – but that stupid lighning accident would have slowed them down: they would have to call a tow truck, wait for it to find them in the middle of nowhere, spent the whole day in the nearest city while someone else was putting his dirty hands on the Impala and _only then_   they would have finally returned on that stretch of road to finish the job…  
Damned demon, Dean couldn’t wait to send back in Hell that bastard.  
  
After all, the melted engine was original and it was very unlikely that a random mechanic of a small town kept some Chevy original parts in his garage.  
The Impala would have never been the same.  
   
Dean really couldn’t believe it.  
He barely swallowed the lump in his throat: «I feel like crying...»  
   
«It's the smoke» commented Sam, who knew always what to say to suffering people.  
   
His brother ignored him.  
«On top of that now we are stuck here, in the middle of nowhere!» he exclaimed. He looked around, hoping to see a farmhouse, or a service area, but there was absolutely nothing proving human presence: just a vast and empty land, scattered here and there with bushes and tumbleweeds. Tiptoeing over the horizon line there was a forest, made even ghostly by the pale moonlight. Basically the classic horror movie set, one just had to imagine some creepy howling in the distance.  
   
Dean sighed: it didn’t look promising.  
«And I guess there’s no service here, right?»  
   
«No service, I just checked,» Sam confirmed, putting his phone away in his pocket «It must be because of the thunderstorms… We just have to wait for someone to come through here..»  
   
Dean shook his head.  
«This road is closed, remember?  _T_ _hunderstorms danger_!» he said theatrically, remembering their reckless laughs reading that sign.  
Oh, dramatic irony..  
   
«In this case I don’t know, we could walk to the nearest town and ask for help. There has to be a city, around here…»  
   
Covering his mouth with his t-shirt not to breathe the smoke coming out of the hood, Sam got closer to the Impala and opened the door. Dean saw him going through the glove compartment and then pulling out what seemed a crumpled road atlas. Using his phone light, Sam began examinating it.  
   
«There is it… Hawkins. It seems to be four miles away from here, tops. It’s not much, we could be there in a couple of hours.»  
   
Dean furrowed his brow.  
«Are you kidding me, right? You are not seriously asking me to leave my car here.»  
   
His brother sighed.  
«Dean, the road is closed, you said it yourself. No one is gonna drive by… and- I hate to break it to you but I don’t think any thief would be interested in the 'Impala. You know, it’s not doing…  _too well_.» he said, dimly nodding to their car.  
   
«Ugh, don’t remind me!» Dean groaned, closing his eyes with solemnity and shaking his head «I cannot even look at it...»  
   
«I told you, it's the smoke.»  
   
«Will you stop?» Dean replied, before giving in to a cracked smile.  
His brother smiled back and Dean found himself thinking how _familiar_ it was to feel again the bond with him, to look at him and know that maybe they were alone in that world, but alone together. Ok, now it was just a stupid engine failure, but somehow it was nice to go back to the old times – a good mission on the field with an old-fashioned Salt-and-Burn job – without angels and apocalypses in the way…  
He would have never admitted that to Sam, but he had missed all this.  
   
In the meantime, his brother had beginned stuffing their backpacks with all they could have needed – documents, fake badges, dad’s journal, flashlights, salt, a flask of holy water, amulets and a couple of knives –, he had put the gun in his jacket pocket and had closed the trunk. It was time to go.  
   
«What’s the name of this town again?» Dean asked one last time, wearing his backpack.  
   
«Ehm… Hawkins, I think.»  
   
«Let’s go to Hawkins, then!» he said, faking his optimism «The last one there buys breakfast!»  
  
   
\---  
   
  
  
They had been walking for about an hour when they started to go into the heart of the forest.  
   
They actually could have done without it since it wasn’t full daylight and falshlights were useless anyway  because there was no path to follow, but Hawkins seemed to be exactly beyond that woods, while keeping walking along the highway would have been just the long way round.  
   
It didn’t seem to be a big forest, but Dean wasn’t confortable in that. He didn’t belog there. There was too little asphalt and too much moss. It was November and the trees were bare. Their branches twitched like claws in the vaguely pink morning sky.  
  
«That’s all we needed, the Hundred Acre Wood!» Dean grumbled. With a sigh, he looked at his boots, muddy and covered with dry leaves. Step by step, his feet were pretty much sinking into the dark ground like Artax in the Swamp of Sadness. What was weird was that he and Sam weren’t the only one recently walking in the woods, because the ground was covered with footprints.  
   
Judging from their lenght, adult’s footprints. They weren’t exactly in a row, but they all were pointing in the same direction.  
«Hey, Sam, did you see these footprints?»  
   
«There are hundreds of them,» he said, stopping walking. He crounched down to examine them and he gently touch the closest footprint: «The ground is still damp. These footprints cannot be more a few hours old. I could be wrong, but it’s like there has been some kind of procession here, last night…»  
   
«A procession in the middle of the woods?  _Please_ , tell me it’s not some bloody witches’ sabbath, you know I hate that kind of stuff!»  
   
Sam mumbled some gibberish and got up. It seemed like he had noticed something importante, because his eyes were fixed on something before him, even though Dean could just see the dark silhouettes of the trees. he was about to ask him if had found any clue when Sam rushed away and disappeared behind a trunk. Dean run after him, cursing against all that mud and cold.  
   
Sam was standing in front of what seemed like an old oak. He was still, his stare fixed on a white rectangle, his voice nothing more than a whisper.  
  
«It wasn’t a sabbath. It was a research team» he said, showing Dean the piece of paper nailed to the trunk. 

                  
 Dean looked at it, wondering if it what Sam had caught a glipse of, before.  
It was one of those missing person flyer – the classic thing hasn’t a real purpose except for making the victim’s parents feel better with themselves. As far as he knew, no one was ever found thanks to a stupid piece of paper, and that probably wouldn’t be an exception.  
«This Will Byers has the same haircut you had in your Stanford years, but it looks better on him. Maybe because he is twelve, and not twenty-two.»  
   
It was something Dean was used to - using irony as his personal shield, as a diversion not to show the world that he was just pretending to be alright. Seeing that flyer had made him feel miserable and useless, because it was the kind of already happened tragedy that no one could have fixed. He hated to feel that way.  
«Poor kiddo.»  
   
«Yeah…» echoed Sam, even though he wasn’t staring at the picture in the center of the flyer, nor at the words printed on it, no. His attention was all on a tiny numerical sequence, scribbled on the top right.  
«Dean... Dean, look at the date.»  
   
« _November 6th, 1983_ » he read out loud, without understanding «It’s impossible, this flyer seems hot off the presses!»  
   
«It could be a prank,» tried to say Sam, with a shrug «After all, it was Halloween last week, and anyone could have printed a fake missing person flyer… It _has_ to be a prank, we couldn't have really-»  
   
«We time-travelled!» Dean decided. In his eyes, Sam saw the same half excited and half proud look that his brother had given him when he had told Sam his theory about the ending of Inception, something about the whole movie being a dream of the main character. Dean was smiling while saying: «God, I have being waiting my whole life to say that!»  
   
Sam shook his head, as trying to cast out that idea from his head, and especially from his brother’s.  
«You can’t be serious! We couldn’t have _really_ time-travelled!»  
   
Dean’s lips curved in an half smile: «Well, stranger things happened!»  
   
It was true, painfully true.  
The Winchester had hunted each kind of creature and experienced demon possesion, parallel dimensions and resurrections.  
A time-travel wasn’t so implausible, after all.  
   
«Ok but… how?» exclaimed Sam, still confused «Do you think it's something about this forest? I don’t know, maybe there’s some kind of curse upon it… do you remember that cornfield in Oregon?»  
   
«Curse? Who said anything about curse!» Dean replied, not without shivering at the thought of witches. He stretched his arms and said: «Don’t tell me you still haven’t got it! It's pretty obvious, if you think about it!»  
   
«And what exactly I should think about?» Sam asked, quite bothered.   
  
«That it’s just like the movie!» Dean answered, smile to be the clever brother for once «Listen: I push the Impala up to 88 miles an hour, a lightning stikes it and bam- we are like Micheal J. Fox!»  
   
Each word had been followed by an enthusiast gesture of Dean’s hands, but Sam was still pretty clueless about what he was talking about.  
«Ehm…»  
   
Dean’s smile disappeared.  
«Don’t you dare telling me you don’t know him!»  
   
His brother blushed and looked away.  
«I don’t know, Dean! You are the one spending all your nights on Netflix! Excuse me if I prefer to sleep!» ribatté, sulla difensiva «Or… read-»  
   
«But _Back to the Future_ is a classic!»  
   
«To you everything I don't like or I don't know it's a classic.» clapped back Sam, who probably wasn’t over all the arguments about _Born to Run._  
«And now can we go back to our main problem?»  
   
«You mean our time-travel?»  
   
«Yeah, Dean, our time-travel! I get it, you are over the moon that you live in you favorite movie but think about it…  So far we have never heard of climatic events that could bend space-time and all of the sudden a lightning strikes and we are back in time! Don't you think it's… I don't know, strange?»  
   
«It's _us,_ of course it has to be strange» Dean mumbled. He pulled a bottle of water off  his backpack and handed it to his brother.  
   
«Thanks» Sam sighed, giving it back to him «I don't know… I don’t like this.»  
   
«Come on, Sammy, everybody likes the Eighties» Dean replied «Bon Jovi,  _Star Wars_ , _MacGiver_ … sooner or later we will find a way to get back – we came back from the dead, this won’t be that hard! Anyway I don’t get why are always complaining… why could end up in, like, time of dinosaurs of atomic bombs and insted we got the Eighties-»  
   
«’83.» Sam highlighted and suddently there was a strange sadness in his voice «It's 1983. The same year, the same _month_ mum died.  Don’t you find it strange that we keep a ending up in the same, specific, point in the story?»  
   
Dean’s smile disappeared. He didn’t want to talk about that. What’d Sam think, that he didn’t remember it? How could he forget that 1983 had been the year in which his whole life had changed – the years in which he had stopped being a kid and had turned into the soldier his Dad needed?  
He remembered it. He remembered it all too well.  
«What do you mean?» Dean asked, his lips a thin, grave line.  
   
«I don’t know. I just don’t understand why do we keep reliving this. If it’s just a coincidente, it’s quite a cruel one.»  
   
 _In case you didn’t notice, little brother, our whole life is pretty cruel._  
Dean thought back to the night of the fire and how the flames had kept burning for hours before the firemen managed put them out. He thought back to his mother, dressed in a white nightdress in all his memories, like Dean wasn’t allowed to remember her in any other way. He thought back to the _djinn_ that had made him feel what was like to have a normal life – and he thought back to how hard it had been, in the end, to say no.  
Maybe Sam was right and it was all another trick, another freakishly realistic delusion caused by who knows what supernatural being.  
   
«It’s like everything always started with this moment and we were forced to live it again and again and again…» was in fact saying Sam «Maybe it’s a Trickster. A real one, this time.»  
   
Dean found himself shaking his head: «You mean a bastard with a wild imagination and too much free time? No, I don’t think it’s a Trickster… why on earth would he do that? Ok, it’s 1983 and it’s an important year for us, but this is Hawkins, not Lawrence. If someone would use our memories against us, he wouldn’t have brought us in a little town we have never been to. It wouldn’t make any sense…»  
   
«What if this was th wrong approach? What if this time it wasn't about us, but about this?» Sam suddently realized, vaguely gesturing toward the tree behind him.  
   
Dean looked at it without understanding.  
«This… tree?»  
   
«Not the tree! Will Byers!» Sam replied, pointing at the flyer«Dean, I think… I think there's a reason why we got here. Maybe we have to find this boy!»  
   
«Yeah, right. We _time-travelled_ to find a kid? And don’t give me that “Everything happens for a reason” shit» Dean said, using air quotes «I've got Castiel for that.»  
   
His brother sighed.  
«That’s not what I am saying. But you said it yourself, there isn’t a plausible reason why we’ve ended up in Indiana… yet  here we are, in 1983, and a boy’s missing. What were the chances?»  
   
«People disappear all the time!» Dean bursted out.  
   
«Yeah, but time-travel isn’t that common, is it? It’s clear that _something_ brought us here – call it what you want, God, Fate-»  
   
«A road atlas»  
   
«The point is that maybe we can help. Don’t you wanna try to make the most of the time we have here?»  
   
Dean couldn’t help but thinking that it would have been the perfect Miss America’s speech, because Sam actually seemed to mean every word – that was him, always trying to be useful to others, even when they were strangers, even when it was a lost cause  
With a bitter smile, Dean thought back to few minutes before and how easily he had given up an that Will Byers.  
But Sam hadn’t.  
Maybe that was his greatest virtue, and his biggest flaw.  
He was always too hopeful.  
   
«But we don't even know if it’s a job for us!» Dean tried to say, even though he was sure his brother wouldn’t have listened to him «Maybe he’s just a kid playing hooky, or maybe he’d been chopped up by his neighbour…»  
   
«Or maybe is’s a job for us.» Sam said smiling «We just have to ask around once we get in Hawkins, we won’t waste too much time, I promise.»  
   
Dean was about to reply that they ha all the time in the world since they were, like, thirty years ahead of schedule, but he put his index on his lips to tell his brother to be quiet.  
   
Sam nodded.  
He had heard it too.  
The sound of snapped branches, the rustle of dry leaves.  
But, above all, what sounded like a camera’s click.  
They weren’t alone.  
   
The brothers suddently turned and looked around, but the forest was too dense for them to see clearly.  
In other circumstances they would have split to search the woods on their own, but it now it wasn’t a good idea since their phones weren’t working and they just had basic weapons with them. And maybe it was just someone hiking in the woods with no hostile intent.  
(That creepy and muddy forest probably wasn’t the ideal for a morning hike, but Dean chose not to think about it)  
   
«Let's go» he said, touching his brother’s shoulder and pointing at a faint pillar of smoke. It was a fireplace sign. The town couldn’t be far from them and Dean couldn’t wait to leave that damned forest.  
«Hurry up. The sooner we get to Hawkins, the sooner we will make some sense out of all this.»  
  
   
\---  
   
  
   
«Hawkins, sweet Hawkins!»  
   
Dean’s words were supposed to be sarcastic, but they sounded appropriate in early morning silence: Hawkins looked like one of those towns on the estate agencies ads, all blue skies and manicured lawns. The kind of place where the most exciting thing ever happened was the New Year’s Eve bingo.  
The roads were broad and tree-lined, the houses painted in pastel colors.  
It was all pink and pleasing to the eye – almost nauseating, like service station donuts.  
Dean wondered if the kid’s disappearence was the only strange thing happened in Hawkins or if it was just the tip of the iceberg.  
   
With a tired sigh, he sat on the sidewalk and asked without conviction: «Phones still not working, right?»  
   
«Nope» Sam replie, before adding: «And it makes sense, indeed, since we are in the Eighties. I fear that we’ll have to research the old way, questions and libraries -»  
   
«Hey, hey, easy tiger! Even if it was a job for us – which we still don't know for sure – I remind you that the priority is and stays my car!» pointed out Dean «I don't like the idea of having abandoned it!»  
   
«The Impala will be just fine without us, I promise» Sam murmured, hoping his brother didn’t remember what – smoky and banged up – state they had left the Impala in.  
   
Helping him to get up, Sam said: «Let’s just find a motel... We’ll get some rest, call the tow truck and then we can ask around about the disappearence of Will Byers»  
   
«Look at you,  _The disappearence of Will Byers_! It sounds like the title of a crap movie.» Dean growled, still skeptical about it. «If you are gonna keep wasting time on this story it’s fine, but first… pie! I am starving.»  
   
Sam gave up with a smile.  
After all, they hadn’t eaten anything since last night and they couldn’t face supernatural beings on an empty stomach.  
«I think I see a diner’s sign, just up ahead-»  
   
In that same moment a kid on a bike speeded before him, cutting him off: «Last one to the diner is a Demogorgon!» he screamed at his friends, almost losing his balance.  
   
«Hey, watch where you’re going!» Dean yelled at them, barely keeping from using a couple of  swear words to make the message clearer. Those damned kids were identical in every temporal dimension.  
«Sam, are you alright?»  
   
He nodded: «Yeah, they missed me.»  
   
«By a speck! What else needs to happen in this damned place?!»  
   
Dean hoped that at least  _Benny’s Burger_  pie was worth it, because so far Hawkins wasn’t exactly in the Top Ten of his favorite cities. So, with the umpteenth sigh of the day he walked into the diner _–_  which actually wasn’t promising, viewed from the outside, since there was a black wreath on the door.  
   
\---  
   
  
It was nice to see all those happy families sitting at tables laden with milkshakes and french fries and pancakes. Dean thought that, in 1983, it was probably Saturday, or Sunday.  
   
He sat with his brother at one of the few free tables and after a while the waitress came to take their orders.  
«Sorry it took so long, it’s my first weekend shift and as you see this place is full of people… so what can I get you?» a female voice asked.  
   
«For me just a coffee, thank you.» Sam said.  
   
Dean looked daggers at him: after the accident, the forest and the walking, they deserved good things!  
He cleared his voice and without looking up from the menu he started to list: «For me a pint of lager, french fries and pie,  una birra media, delle patatine e una fetta di torta della casa, preferably apple pie but I am flexible. Oh, and waffles, while I’m at it!»  
  
When finally Dean looked up he decided that Hawkins deserved a couple of extra kudos becase the waitress of that place was really pretty.  
Not his kind of pretty – he preferred women a little more curvy – but still nice: the girl had  a charming and subtle beauty, that came to light in little details like the grey of her eyes,  her diamond–shaped face, the loose strand of hair tucked behind her ear.  
According to the tag on her red apron, her name was Nancy.  
  
And even though Dean had just found out her name, he couldn’t help but adding in a deep and seductive voice: «Unless you’re on the menu, sweetie-»  
   
Sam kicked him under the table.  
«Sorry about him... My brother is still in shock» he said, smiling apologetically «I know it sound crazy but we have just been struck by lightning.»  
   
Nancy covered her mouth: «Oh my God, do you need a doctor?!»  
   
«We need a tow truck» Dean corrected her «And a mechanic, but a good one, not just anyone-»  
   
«Couldn’t you give us an address?» Sam kindly summarized «We’d be mighty grateful.»  
   
She blushed: «Of- Of course I… may check on the phonebook but the posso guardare sull'elenco telefonico, but offhand I can’t think of anyone … but maybe my boyfriend can help you- Steve, he… knows more than I do about engines and mechanics.»  
   
Sam gave her his best smile and Dean could almost hear Nancy’s heart pounding. It was weird, for once, not being the one girls hit on.  
He wasn’t sure he liked it.  
   
«It would be great!» Sam was saying «One last thing, Nancy… you have a  payphone, here? We tried with some phone booths in town but weren’t working.»  
   
«Oh, it’s been a few days, now, there must be some kind of problem with the cell coverage of the area or something. But you can use the phone we have here,  I don’t think the new owner bothers. I can ask…»  
   
Sam frowned: «What happened to the previous owner?»  
   
«He’s been killed, three or four days ago. A gunshot, an awful thing...» she answered, lowering her voice «One of the waitress is a friend of mine, she didn’t feel well today, and there I am.»  
   
«There you are» echoed Dean, just to say something.  
   
«Yeah… well, I’ll go putting your order in,» Nancy hastily said, keeping her eyes on Sam «And I’ll ask Rupert about the phone»  
She run away before they could thank her again.  
   
«What a nice girl» Sam commented, as he was pulling out something from the backpack. It was the flyer they had found in the woods, the one about that Will Byers.  
   
«Woah… You’re never giving anything away! That Nancy really captured your heart!»  
   
Sam sighed: «What did you understand? – I meant that she was _humanly nice_. Kind, you know... Willing to help us.»  
   
«Yeah, yeah, whatever you want.» Dean cut it off. I didn’t like this kind of cheesy stuff in the morning, it was killing his appetite.  
«What do you plan to do for the Byers Case?»  
   
«Is that how we call it now?» his brother chuckled.  
   
«I would call it Case Closed, but  I know that you have a special interest in this so go on, tell me your brilliant plan to go and find this kid!»  
He didn’t want to be so curt, but that was taking up too much time: Hawkins should have been just a quick stop to fix the car and insted they had found themselves caught up in a wrinkle in time, stranded and looking for a boy who probably would have never come home.  
Unfortunately, ever since his Stanford Law School days Sam had a soft spot for lost causes.  
   
«Look, if you don’t wanna help me stop dancing around it and tell me to my face. I have the feeling that there’s something wrong with this place, something… supernatural, you know?»  
   
Dean winced hearing that word, because he knew all too well that his whole life was kinda supernatural.  
   
«You heard what Nancy said… power’ve been on and off for days, probably since Will disappeared. You know as well as I do that-»  
   
« _Power outages are classic signs of  demons’ presence_ » Dean quoted «I know, I know… but  one clue is not enough.»  
   
«And what about the killing of the previous owner? Killing that just happens to have occured four days ago. We have acted for less, and you know that.»  
   
Dean bit his lip: «Who knows, maybe I’ve got tired of making you feel better whenever things go wrong.»  
   
«What is that supposed to mean?»  
   
«That I know you. I know that _I will save you_ look in your eyes, but here’ s the news: we cannot save everyone.»  
They were words too harsh for Dean to take them back, so he didn’t.  
He got up from the table and grabbed the backpac.  
«I’ll eat on the counter. You eat with that _Nancy girl_ _,_ if you feel like.»  
   
   
\---  
   
  
Dean would have wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, with some kind of dramatic music in the background, tears streaming down Sam’s face and Dean slamming the door without looking back, but he still hadn’t eaten his pie. So he just sat at the counter. Who cared if he was just a few feet away from his brother?  
  
He tasted some fries, while he was absentmindedly looking around: the place was even more crowded then before and it was humming with a joyful and freakishly _normal_ buzz.  
  
  
For example, there was a buch of kids sitting in the table behind Sam’s and they were arguing about God knows what game waving flashlights and bags of chips like it was a matter of life and death.  
Dean couldn’t help but wondering if he would have got bored living a life like that – all white fences and Eggos for breakfast – or if he would have got used to it: who knows, maybe in time the ringing in his ears would have stopped, his heart would have beaten slower, his scars would have healed for better. Maybe he would have been happy, in Hawkins.  
   
It was no use thinking about that. It wasn’t his place, but just a pit stop – like every single city he and Sam had set food in, even their old Lawrence.  
Those who spend their life between a road and a steering wheel cannot stay in the same place for too long, like  nomads, or Mary Poppins, Dean thought sipping his beer.  
Hawkins wasn’t an exception: he and Sam would have left in a few hours, just enough time to find a mechanic and go back to the future.   
   
\---  
   
   
Sam had read that flyer at least a billion of times but he couldn’t find anything useful for the case. He could have called the number of that Joyce Byers – mother? Sister? – but what for?  
“Hello, I have the feeling the disappearence of Will is somehow connected to the strange events happened in the city, did you notice anithing suspicious, lately?”  
She would have hung up the phone in o,1 seconds – or worse, she would have listened to him even though Sam had no certainty that the kid was still alive.  
   
He sighed, thinking that maybe his brother was right – maybe he had clinged on the idea of saving Will because he felt sorry for that kid, who was too young and too innocent to face the world horror, no matter if it was the supernatural world or just human wickedness.  
   
He folded the piece of paper, determined to pun an end to the matter, when he hear some strange words: «Eleven told me that Will is alive and I trust her.»  
   
Sam froze.  
It was the voice of a little boy, one of the four children that were sitting at the table behind him. He couldn’t be sure that h was talking about _the same Will,_ but Hawkins was a small town and Sam didn’t believed in coincidences.  
He had two choices: keeping eavesdropping those children’s conversation – that could have been just nonsense – or directly asking them – probably scaring them away.  
He decided to wait.  
Dean was still eating his pie anyway.  
  
   
\---  
   
  
It was one of the best pies he had ever had, Dean thought with a satisfied grin, wondering if he could have gone back in time to taste it over and over again. A moment like that required the right soundtrack, even just to drown out the noise of the diner. Luckily there was an old jukebox in a corner – the kind of jukebox one would find in thriftshops – and Dean couldn’t help but checking out which were its songs.  
He wasn’t disappointed: Police, Lionel Richie, Bryan Adams, Bonnie Tyler…  
Some of those songs were a little too romantic for his taste, but they were still music cornerstones.  
It was hard to pick just one, so Dean randomly pushed one button and the Eurythmics filled the air with their  _Sweet Dreams_.  
   
Dean nodded and went back to the counter to finish his pie, but his eye was caught by a guy, sitting alone. He had messy bronish hair, light eyes and the tired expression of someone stayed out all night. He wore a semi-pro camera around his neck.  
   
When the song had started, the guy had closed his eyes and had began moving his head following the rhytm. Non in a frantic, erratic way, but slowly, respectfully, like someone who is praying and not dancing  
   
Dean couldn’t help to see himself in him, remembering all the times he had blasted a song so loud that he could’t even hear his own thoughts, using notes like bricks in the imaginary walls he was building between the world and his life.  
If that guy was really like him, well, he must be lonely.  
  
«Nice song, isn’t it?» he tried to say, when he was close enough.  
   
The guy opened his eyes: «Uh?»  
   
«This song… I picked it.»  
   
«Thank you?» said the guy, looking away.  
Ok, definetely not a chatter, but Dean wasn’t the type to give up, either.  
   
«Maybe there’s a little too much synth, but I think it’s a classic.»  
   
«It is, sir.»  
   
«You can call me Dean, if you want,» he said, without a real reason. It was pretty clear that the guy didn’t want to talk to him, so why bothering? «Or maybe not»  
Dean couldn’t handle rejection of any kind – girls, boys, credit cards readers – so he shrugged and just said: «Enjoy your breakfast, man»  
   
He was coming back to the counter when he heard someone screaming afeter him: «Jonathan… my name is Jonathan Byers»  
   
  
\---  
   
  
   
«So Will is trapped in a parallel dimension?»  
   
«El told me that’s it’s more like a… _mirrored_ _dimension, but yeah._ »  
   
«Mpf-and how do we get him?»  
   
«I don’t know.»  
   
«Can’t you ask Eleven?»  
   
«She doesn’t know either.»  
   
«Fat lot of good she does us.»  
   
«Can you stop that? Look, actually if it wasn’t for her we wouldn’t even know that Will is alive»  
   
«Yeah, if it’s true…»  
   
« _It is._ »  
   
«Silly me, I forgot that is your girlfriend we are talking about, Mike»  
   
«What is _girlfriend_?»  
   
«Ignore them, El, they are just idiots»  
   
«Mouthbreathers»  
   
«Yeah, mouthbreathers! Can you now shut up?! We are here to talk about Will! We need a plan.»  
   
«Excuse me but  Eleven cannot simply go into the Upside Down and teleport Will? With some kind of telekinesis-»  
   
«Shhh! Lower your voice, Dustin!»  
   
«Ouch!»  
   
«Do you think somebody heard him?»  
   
«I don’t think so… but I told you that meeting at _Benny’s Burger_  was a terrible idea!»  
   
«What could I do, guys? I was hungry!»  
   
Sam had definetely heard enough.  
Most people at that point would have thought that those kids were crazy and were just trying to cope with the death of their friend in a creative way, but Sam wasn’t most people.  
   
Will was alive – so he hadn’t been wrong on that, but the whole situation of monsters and parallel dimensions was almost too strange even for him. And there was that Eleven – what the hell kind of names where in fashion in the Eighties? - Eleven that sounded a ten years old tops but had _psychic powers._  
   
Sam’s fists clutched in anger.  
What if she was another special baby created by Azazel? After all, it was the right year, 1983...  
Anyway, that little girl sounded frightened, because she talked in whispers and with hesitation, as if she wasn’t used to it, as if growing up almost anyone had spoken to her.  
  
   
\---  
   
   
It wasn’t so hard to have a conversation with Jonathan once one found his Achille’s heel – and his Achille’s heel was music.  
It had only took Dean to go into his pockets and pull out all his coins. Then, he had casually asked Jonathan if he had some suggestion for the jukebox songs.  
It had been a cheap trick, but Jonathan had been compliant. It was pretty clear that he needed someone to talk to, whether he wanted to admit it or not.  
   
«And so your name’s Byers… Are you the brother of the missing kid?»  
   
Jonathan nodded, biting his lip.  
«Will. His name’s Will.»  
   
«Yeah, Will!» said Dean, thinking that Sam was a hundred times better than him in handling people grieving.  
«I’m sorry… How are the researches going?»  
   
«They are not» he just answered, witouth looking up form his hot chocolate.  
He hadn’t touched it, it must have been just a cold slop by now. He had probably walked into the diner not because he was hungry, bbut because he had no other place to go.  
Jonathan took a deep breath and said: «My brother has been missing for fine days and we still haven’t got any update. Will isn’t – he hasn’t a good head on his shoulder? He lives in a world of his own making, he has a great imagination. We are not exactly the classic happy family, but we’re getting by. We were. Will has never been away from hom for so long and my mom is getting crazy…»  
   
The river of words he had kept inside was now overflowing and Dean wasn’t sure it was a good thing because now he had a teary-eyed boy and no advice to give.  
«I’ve got a brother too» he found himself saying, even just to fill the silence «I can only imagine what is like for you.»  
   
(actually, Dean couldn’t just imagine it. He had lived it, and it had been just heartbreaking. Maybe that was the reason why he was trying to help  Jonathan: that guy was so similar to him that it was like looking in a mirror – even though Dean would have never had that haircut. Ever. Not even in the Eighties)  
   
«My mum… she keeps saying that he will come back home, that he is alive, that she can feel him _…_ »  
   
«Wait, do you mean that she can feel his presence or that she actually _has_ some way to get in touch with him?» Dean asked, frowning.  
   
Jonathan was baffled.  
«How does it matter? It’s bullshit… anyaway, she thinks she can get in touch with him through the light…»  
   
Dean mentally wrote that piece of information down and decided to change the subject, because he feared that Jonathan would have stopped talking if he had insisted on the supernatural elements.  
He had spotted some mud on Jonathan’s boots, so he asked him: «It was you in the woods this morning, wasn’t it?»  
   
«I was looking for my brother» he answered, his hands moving to the camera in an inconscious protective instinct.  
  
«There’s no need to explain.»  
   
«I dont’ even know what I was looking for, in the woods. It’s just that I don’t know anywhere else to search. Sometimes he and his friends play there. And his bike… they found his bike in a ditch.»  
   
«Jonathan, there’s no need to explain» Dean repeated, fixing his eyes in the boy’s «I am just saying that you should be careful. We still don’t know what happened to your brother and you should’t go looking for him alone. It could be dangerous.»  
   
«I cannot just sit on my hands and do nothing!» Jonathan burst out, while the song he had picked on the jukebox –  _Should I Stay or Should I Go_  dei The Clash – was almost ending «I –I can’t. The house is full of Christmas lights and lightbulbs and I fear… I fear that I might jack up like my mom!»  
   
Jonathan rubbed his eyes, as if he wanted to physically prevent his eyes from crying. He seemed exahusted.  
«The thing is- it’s my fault. I should have looked badare io a lui. I am his big brother, it was my responsability-»  
   
«You cannot live with the regret of not having done enough. If you don’t let it out, you’re gonna let it eat you away» Dean murmured, as some images flashed before his eyes. Memories of the night he had watched Sam dying , a knife in his back and a smile on his lips. He had died in Dean’s arms and Dean had felt life going out of _himself_ , before going out of Sam. At that point, making a deal with a demon had been an obvious choice, because his life didn’t mean anything without his brother.  
Trading Sam’s life for his last year had been like paying a diamond with wastepaper.  
   
«I thought you were supposed to make me feel better» Jonathan whispered amd Dean came back to reality.  
   
«I’m not good with words» he admitted «Do you wanna pick another song?»  
  
   
\---  
   
   
The song that Dean had picked – something by The Clash, maybe? Sam couldn’t remember – was almost over when the table with Eleven, Dustin, Mike and Lucas decided to leave the diner, go home and get ready for a night mission.  
Sam couldn’t wait any longer.  
He didn’t know exactly what were those kids planning, but it coulnd’t be good. They liked the idea of Hunting, but the were reckless and unprepared, as if their slingshots were enough to fight a demonic creature.  
Sam grabbed his backpack, left five dollars on the table and rushed towards the jukebox, where Dean was chatting with a tall pale guy.  
«Dean, I need to talk to you. Now»  
   
«Can’t you wait the end of the song?» Dean groaned «You know that  _Eye of the Tiger_  is my signature song in all fifty states karaokes!»  
   
« _American Idol_  will have to wait, I fear» his brother cut it short «It’s pretty important»  
   
Dean rolled his eyes: «Alright, alright! Sorry, Jonathan, it has been a pleasure to meet you... I really mean it»  
They shook hands and the Dean followed his brother out _._  
«What?»  
   
«I’ve got big news about the case» Sam claimed, expecting his brother to congratulate him about it.  
   
But Dean didn’t seem impressed.  
«Yeah, me too»  
   
«What does it mean _you too_?» Sam burst out, startled «Dean, you’ve spent all the time singing along with that guy!»  
   
«First of all, we weren’t “singing along”, we went with the flow, it’s different! And second, some people are actually multitaskers and can do more than one thing at the same time…. The guy I spoke to was Will Byers’s brother. He told me their mother is communicating with Will through electrical signals. Lights going on and off, power outages, stuff like that… maybe Will’s ghost is still in the house-»  
   
«Will is not a ghost, he is alive.»  
   
«Really? Again with this?» Dean sighed, shaking his «I _told you_  not to get involved!»  
   
«I am not involved» Sam replied, without even knowing if it was a lie «And this is not the point. At the diner I heard some kids talking about Will… he’s alive, buti s trapped in another dimension. They call in The Upside Down, but I think it’s just an alternative dimension where everything is different, like mirrored. This dimension, this Upside Down, has some contact points with our world and that’s where the creatures that kidnapped Will come from. And one of this kids, the girl, has psychic powers and is able to track Will down, at least most of the times-»  
   
Sam had spoken fast for the fear to forget something and Dean felt stunned.  
«Parallel realities, an X-Girl with a GPS power and creatures that are literally otherwordly… Wow, Sammy, you totally win!» Dean exclaimed with an half smile, giving his brother a warm pat on his shoulder – which was his macho way to tell him he was proud of him.  
«Sorry for what I said before. I shouldn’t have taken out on you.»  
   
«Nevermind, it’s in the past» Sam answered with a shrug, even though he could feel a familiar sense of relief at the thought of making it up with him.  
«And there’s more.»  
   
His brother burst out laughing.  
«How could there possibly be more?»  
   
«These kids I told you about… they are planning to take a trip in the woods looking for their friend, tonight-»  
   
«You think they’re gonna become the Upside Down Resort’s next guests?» Dean finished his thought.  
   
His brother nodded with gravity and said: «We have to keep them away from the woods Dobbiamo impedire loro di avvicinarsi al bosco»  
   
«We have to keep _the whole town_ away from it» Dean said «Jonathan told me the sheriff had organized some search teams to go finding the little Byers, so tonight the forest will be filled with a bunch of people that have no weapons, no kind of protections, and most of all, not even the faintest idea of what they are going to face-»  
   
«Actually, we don’t have it either» Sam pointed out.  
   
Dean gave him his best arrogant smile.  
«Yean, but we are _us_.»  
   
   
\---  
  
   
Chief Hopper’s office smelled like sugar and lemon frosting.  
   
Dean hadn’t even _needed_ to  go inside to know that for the Hawkins P.D. it must be donut day.  
His day in Hawkins was getting better and better.  
   
«Mpf…I’m sheriff too!» Dean murmured with his mouth full,  while he was secretly giggling because he had persuaded Sam to keep his eye in the Mini Ghostbusters leaving him thel local sheriff. And there he was, stuffing his face with a chill guy like Hopper. Really a good choice.  
   
Chief Hopper seemed glad to hear it, because his lips curved into a kind smile as he was asking: «You don’t say! Which district?»  
   
«Oh, a little here, a little there..» Dean answered, vaguely gesturing «I don’t like staying in one place.»  
   
«A maverick, uh?»  
Dean smiled but Hopped preceeded him:  
«I can’t stand mavericks.»  
   
And a few seconds later he added: «It means that I don’t need people like you. So, _sheriff_  Manson, thank you for stopping by, but we have everything under control.»  
   
Dean had almost choked on the last bit of donut, surprised by how fast Hopper had gone from being friendly to being hinky, but he wasn’t to type of guy who was easily intimidated. If Hopper really wanted to play the bad cop, he would have been the worse cop.  
   
He took a deep breath to pump his chest,  he run his hand through his hair to fake confidence – ending up with rainbow sprinkles on his forehead – and said: «If “under control” means that lights keep going on and off, an unidentified creature has run away from a government lab and in the last four days a kid went missing, I think you’re right, Chief Hopper»  
   
He frowned: «How do you know all this? It’s classified!»  
   
«Oh… we’ve our sources, you know» Dean answered vaguely, since admitting that he and his partner had eavesdropped a bunch of kids’s conversation was pretty lame.  
   
«And what did you planned to do to solve this?»  
   
«Just leave it to my team.» Dean said in a firm tone, before heading towards the door.  
   
Ten seconds later, Dean poked his head out of the sheriff’s door.  
«Any chance I could have another one?»  
   
Unexpectedly, Hopper smiled and handed him the donuts.  
Two bad cops could become friends, after all.  
   
  
\---  
   
  
At the end, everything had worked out as planned: Dean had persuaded the sheriff to postpone the woods patrol, and  donut by donut, he had taken his advice about a good mechanic in town; Sam had rent a bike and had followed the group formed by Eleven, Mike, Dustin e Lucas in their reckless free rides, but none of them had gotten into trouble.  
But the sunset was closer and closer and with it the chance that the Creatures of the Upside Down stoke again.  
   
« _Creatures of the Upside Down_ is too long, don’t you think» Dean considered, as he and his brother where walking through the woods «We should find a easier way to call them.»  
   
Sam shrugged.  
«The boys call ‘em Demogorgons»  
   
«Demogorgons» Dean echoed him «I like it. It’s cool!»  
   
«It comes from a role game, _Dungeons and Dragons_ , but actually Boccaccio wrote about them in the _Decameron_ … and before you tell me, I’ve already checked in dad’s diary, but there nothing about them…» Sam explained «How do we kill these creatures, Dean?»  
   
«Same ‘ld way. Holy water, salt and fire»  
   
«What if it wasn’t enough?» Sam found himself asking.  
«We don’t know what we’re up against, Dean-»  
   
«We will help you!»  
   
The brothers turned around and froze.  
The boy that Sam had identified as Mike had come forward, with his head up and his voice firm, but his hands were trembling.  
  
Dean couldn’t help but thinking about his first Hunt, about the adrenaline rushing though his veins at the idea of  avenging his mother, about the cold gun in his hand and the heat of the fire where he and his father had burned the posseded man’s corpse.  
He could see the same _hunger_ in Mike’s eyes, but he didn’t feel proud. He felt just a blind rage.  
«What the fuck are you even doing here, kiddos?»  
   
«I wanna help you saving Will» Mike simply murmured.  
   
«Me too.» Dustin said, coming out from behind a bush.  
   
«Me too.» Lucas echoed them  
   
«Promised. Me too.» Eleven whispered.  
   
Dean rolled his eyes.  
«What is this,  _Dead Poets Society_? We get it, you are worried ‘bout your friend and you wanna help,but you’r just slowing us down… If I worry about you, I cannot fight the Demogorgon, and I don’t fight the Demogorgon, Will dies.»  
   
The kids stayed quiet, probably shocked by the proximity between their friend’s name and a terrible and adult verb like “dying”.  
Dean hoped they had realized how dangerous was their plan, but those kid had probably read too many comics, because they kept playing heroes.  
   
«But we are ready,» Lukas protested «We’ve prepared for this!»  
   
At that point, Dean couldn’t help himself.  
«Prepared? Prepared? A slingshot and two box cutters are not weapons, they’re toys! You are not ready to face a creature like this and you would just be in our way... Come back home, this is a grown-up job.» he growled.  
   
They were probably the right words, because the kids gave each other a strange look and run away. Dean hoped they had learned their lesson.  
  
«You were kind of rough on them.» Sam commented, as soon as they were out of sight.  
   
«Yeah, thank you for backing me up on that.»  
   
«It looked like you were doing pretty well without my help… why’d you need to jump on them? They wanted to help, you could have just – I don’t know – appreciate..?»  
   
Dean stopped walking.  
«Appreciate? They would have got themselves killed! So, if I have to talk tough to keep them away from the Demogorgon-»  
   
«I’m not saying you were wrong, but you should have kept in mind that they were just a bunch of scared kids trying to help…» Sam pointed out, trying to ignore the sense of déjà-vu that he was feeling. He shrugged and said: «You know, we weren’t much older when we began to Hunt…»  
   
Dean’s voice was sharp.  
«In fact. I don’t wish what we’ve been through on anybody.»  
   
His brother didn’t say anything, also because there was nothing left to say: he knew that he and Dean would have been different people, if only their life had been like everyone else’s. They would have spent Sundays bike riding and playing _Dungeons and Dragons_ , instead of learning latin exorcisms by heart. The kind of life they had got used to was tough and cruel, but they had adapted to it, like a bonsai tree growing and taking the shape imposed by the wire on its trunk.  
«Dean, you know I didn’t mean-»  
   
His brother shut him up with a gesture..  
«I heard something.»  
   
They pulled out the rock-salt loaded guns, hoping that it could have stopped – if not killed – the Demogorgon. Sam’s heart was pounding fast. The sunset sky was now red as blood, and the silouhettes of the trees had got darker. Once the night had falle nit would have been more difficult to move, with all those roots and slopes and rocks.  
   
«Come on, beastie, we don’t have all day!» Dean screamed with his usual, reckless courage «We know you’re here, show yourself!»  
   
It’s like they say - “Careful what you wish for”.  
Dean wished he never asked the Demogorgon to come out of hiding, because now that he was seeing it he could finally understand why the kids had given it such a creepy name.  
   
The monster didn’t look like anything the Winchester had never faced, and they had been hunting for almost twenty years. It must be at least eight foot tall, it has a humanoid body and it walked on two legs. It wasn’t particulary fast, and that was probably their only advantage on it. For the rest, the creature’s fingers were hunched and ended with long claws, but the most horrible thing was the head: the Demogorgon didn’t have a real face – it looked like a tropical flower corolla, and in the inside it was all teeth and trickles of dried blood.  
   
«Aim at his head, Sam!» Dean shouted, trying to dodge the Demogorgon’s strike. He rolled on the muddy ground and hit a rock with the back of his hand. Blood gushed from the open wound and Dean saw the creature’s head suddently turning.  
   
In the meantime, Sam as approaching it from behind, to caught it by surprise as it was fighting with Dean. He picked up a stick and once he was close enough to the Demogorgon he snapped it. The monster jumped on him.  
«Run, Dean!» he shouted at his brother, aiming to the monster’s head and pulling the trigger.  
   
The salt bullet got into the horrendous mouth of the creature, piercing it in a purulent whitish squirt, but that was it: Dean, still laying on the ground behind the creature, watched the bullet hole healing in a couple of seconds.  
Killing that Demogorgon wouldn’t have been easy.  
   
«It can regenerate, Sam. Don’t use the gun!» he tried to scream, getting up, his bones aching for the impact. But his brother wasn’t listening: the Demogorgon had knocked him down and had jumped on him to finish him with his teeth and claws. Sam seemed unconscious. He wasn’t even fighting back.  
   
«SAM!»  
Dean rushed towards them, keeping raking the monster with bullets that were probably useless on it. But at least he had got the Demogorgon’s attention, because the creature turned towards him and-  
   
It froze.  
Like a waxwork, like that Paris Hilton he and Sam had faced some years before, paralyzed, with its claws mere inches from Dean’s face.  
«What the-»  
   
Dean turned and saw the little girl, the one Sam had called Eleven. She had raised her hand, as if she wanted to tell the Demogorgone to stop. And it had stopped.  
   
The girl had her eyes closed and a nosebleed. The blonde wig she was always wearing was on the ground. There was mud on it.  
«Take him away» Eleven whispered feebly.  
   
In altre circostanze Dean would have protested to stay there and help her, but psychic powers creeped him out since Sam’s demon blood addiction, so he didn’t object. He rushed towards his brother, got him under the armpits and carried him away from the monster, still frozen.  
   
He sat him down with his back against a big tree, even though an unconscious Sam wasn’t really cooperative and it took a while. Dean checked that the wound on his left arm was the only one, and luckily it didn’t seem a deep cut.  
«Sam… Sammy, open your eyes» Dean murmured «Eleven’s kicking the Demogorgon’s ass and you don’t wanna miss it.»  
   
His brother was stille unresponsive and Dean decided to do that the hard way. He began tenderly slapping his brother on his cheeks, as he used to do when they were young and Sam wasn’t waking up for school.  
   
«Can you stop? Please.» Sam moaned after a while, as he was opeing his eyes. Dean kept slapping him and his brother looked dagger at him and grumbled: «Oh, come on, I am already not feeling w- why do you have sprinkles on your forehead?»  
   
Dean ignored the question.  
«Welcome back, little brother. Now, I’m sorry to bother you but we have a Demogorgon to kill.»  
   
«Ehm, actually, we don’t» Sam pointed our,  his eyes fixed on something behind Dean.  
   
His brother turned: the glade was deserted, no more monster – which was great – but also no more Eleven.  
«Where did the girl go?»  
   
Sam got off his knees.  
«I don’t know. I hope she’s fine…»  
   
«She is surely better than us in fighting those creatures!»  
Dean watched him shaking off twigs and leaves from his coat, wincing in pain.  
   
«Come on, it’s nothing that an aspirin and some booze cannot heal!» Dean jokingly scolded him «Coming back to town we can stop by a drugstore...»  
   
«Not so fast, Dean… Come here.»  
   
His brother rolled his eyes.  
«What? You need an hug?»  
   
«Something like that, yeah» Sam said smiling and when Dean was close enough to him, he playfully slapped him.  
   
«Hey, hey, what was that for?!» Dean protested, withdrawing.  
   
«I’m getting even!» Sam replied laughing «Where are you going? Come back here! Dean, I was kidding! Dean!»  
  
   
   
\---  
   
  
   
«Dean. Dean...» Sam called, as he was throwing the door open and getting inside the motel room where they had spend the night.  
   
Castiel put a finger on his lips, telling him to lower his voice.  
Dean was asleep on an armchair, with his head tilted and his mouth half-open.  
   
«Look at him!» Sam feebly grumbled «He fell asleep with the laptop on...»  
   
With a sigh, he closed his Netflix open window and turned off the laptop.   
 

**Author's Note:**

> -Believe it or not, he image at the beginning is not a manip. It’s a real Supernatural scene, episode 11x5.  
> -Nancy doesn’t work at Benny’s in the series, but I guessed that she could make an exception for one weekend ;)  
> -I wanted to give you some clues to understand that Dean was sleeping, so the song that he randomly picks is Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics and one of the movie references is about Inception. Oh, and also the very first line of the fic was quite a spoiler XD
> 
>  
> 
> It think it’s all. Thank you to anyone reading this. I know, it was very very long and probably full of mistakes, but I truly did my best.   
> If you liked it, please let me know.  
> I love you all.
> 
> Itsamess


End file.
